# Bad Idea



## Sike Saner (Jul 21, 2015)

So, this itsy bitsy teeny weeny Vienna sausage of a ficlet.

A few years back, I did a fanfic meme of some sort that, at one point, asked me to write a paragraph centered around one of my favorite characters. What happened instead were several paragraphs. Whoops-a-daisy.

Rated K+ for mild language, bullying, and an offscreen butt-whooping.

___

*Bad Idea*
~or~
Don't Be a B-hole​

In the darkness of the Granite Cave, Karo the nosepass nestled among the rock formations with a  relaxed sigh. A few good decades’ worth of sleep sounded like a pretty good idea—until a sharp, metallic odor entered the air, faint at first but growing stronger by the second. He knew that scent all too well, and he was no better at ignoring it than he’d ever been.

The sound that came with the scent soon arrived: the tapping of tiny feet against the stone floor. The faint volume of those steps told that their maker was still at a bit of a distance. There was no light in the cavern, no way to see the creature as she drew nearer, but Karo didn’t need to see to know it was an aron who was approaching him.

He thought about leaving her alone. He really did. After all, he wasn’t hungry in the least, so what reason was there not to mind his own business and let the aron go about her own?

Other than entertainment value, that is…

Ultimately, he just couldn’t help himself. The thought of the nice scare he could give her just amused him too much. As the aron got close enough to feel the magnetic influence of the nosepass she’d strayed too near, Karo could hear the rhythm of her stride falter and change; she’d just realized the danger she’d gotten into. Knowing he had to make his move quickly lest the aron turn and run, he gave his magnetic field a sudden boost.

“KREEEEEEEEEE!” cried the aron, pulled sharply towards him. She scrabbled to right herself; once she managed to get back onto her feet, she tried fighting with all her strength against the invisible grip that had seized her, but couldn’t even take a single step forward.

And then, abruptly, Karo cut the power of his magnetic pull as much as he could. The aron, met with a sudden lack of resistance, went tumbling forward with a shout and a crash.

Karo almost couldn’t hear the aron’s footsteps or even her cries over his own loud, honking laughter as she ran bawling out of the cavern. Around the time he finally fell silent, beginning to drift towards a near-bottomless sleep while pride in the prank he’d just pulled still lingered in his head, he noticed a metallic scent on the air once again. It was considerably stronger this time, though, and the footsteps that followed were much louder and slower and were accompanied by another sound—_growling_, Karo recognized with dread as he realized what was approaching him.

There was no light in the cavern, no way to see the creature that now stood before him, uncomfortably close, undeterred by the threat his magnetic field represented to the aron, swishing her heavy tail back and forth with an effortless speed that spoke loud and clear of its owner’s strength. But Karo didn’t need to see her to know that he was now facing a very angry aggron.

_Oh crap…_

Thus it was that Karo learned one of the many reasons why one should never pick on those smaller than oneself: it sometimes draws the attention—and the ire—of something larger than oneself.


*FIN*​


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